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Galleries / People

The Baroness of Hobcaw

courtesy of the Belle W. Baruch FoundationPhotos 24Issue September 2013
The Baroness of HobcawBelle Baruch during a 1936 turkey hunt at her family’s 16,000-acre winter retreat, Hobcaw Barony, near Georgetown, South Carolina; (opposite) the Baruchs, circa 1905, with staff and guests on the porch of “Old Relick,” the original main home on the propertyThe family’s stately brick Hobcaw House—which Bernard had rebuilt in 1929 after a fire destroyed the original wood home—on a bluff overlooking Winyah BayOne-year-old Belle with her mother, Annie Baruch.Isabel Wilcox Baruch, the eldest of Bernard and Anne’s three children, at age five at her grandfather’s summer home in New Jersey.The Baruch children and other relatives gather on the porch of “Old Relick” in 1918.Belle in 1918 working with the Women’s Radio Corps; she was appointed junior inspector and taught Morse code at two aviation camps.Bernard Baruch, a successful Wall Street financier and advisor to seven US presidents, in 1946.Belle with her father, Bernard, and their guests—Diana Churchill and her famous father, Winston—during a 1932 visit to Hobcaw BaronyIn the cockpit on her first flight with friend and pilot Evangeline Johnson (not pictured) in 1916.Belle rides a motorcycle at the family’s rented summer estate in 1915.Goofing around with friends at Hobcaw’s Clambake Landing hunt cabin.Jumping her Anglo-Arabian during a 1931 competition in Italy.Belle volunteered for US Naval Intelligence as a coastal observer from 1942 to ’44, looking out for U-boats along the Hobcaw coastline.Belle’s one-time beau, Charles “Chita” Davila, the Romanian minister in Washington, DC.Aboard “Miladi” on Great South Bay in 1916; Belle went on to become the first woman to win a major race there.Belle with students in Hobcaw’s Strawberry Village, circa 1930.Relaxing with friends, circa 1938, at the Grass Shack at Hobcaw Beach that her former companion Barbara Donohoe had designed.Fishing on the boardwalk of Clambake Landing in 1953.Belle with Ella Severin, her partner from 1951 until Belle’s death in 1964.Belle (pictured in fur coat and hat) with family and friends on the Hobcaw dock in 1935.Belle at her airport hangar in Georgetown, South Carolina, in 1942; the US Army commandeered it and her planes during World War II.Belle with her father at Hobcaw in 1957, seven years before her death.Belle with her pet Deary-Deer in 1963; the fawn had full run of the house and property at Bellefield Plantation, Belle’s home on Hobcaw Barony.

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The Baroness of Hobcaw
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The Baroness Of Hobcaw: Learn about the fascinating life and legacy of heiress Belle Baruch who preserved her 16,000-acre hunting retreat as a sanctuary for land and wildlife conservation and study
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